Theo Triantafyllidis on the Technical Realities of Exhibiting Game-Based Art

Hey there -- if you subscribed to the Twofivesix podcast, we've made some changes to our focus. I'm working with museums, collections, galleries, and cultural orgs on the same big problems I used to help corporate clients with. Hope you enjoy!
 
What does it actually take to exhibit game-based art in a museum? Beyond the romantic notion of "games as art" lies a complex reality of technical requirements, development timelines, and institutional infrastructure that most cultural organizations simply aren't prepared for.

Today, I'm speaking with Theo Triantafyllidis, an artist who builds what he calls "performative systems where natural and synthetic intelligences rehearse their coexistence." Working with games, live simulations, performances, and installations, Theo creates darkly playful procedural worlds that turn phenomena like ecological collapse and networked desire into experiences that can be felt rather than verbally explained.

Theo has exhibited at major institutions including the Whitney Museum, Centre Pompidou, and was part of the Venice Biennale's Hyper Pavilion. His work ranges from Pastoral, an intimate anti-game about a muscular orc running through an infinite hayfield, to Feral Metaverse, an ambitious eight-player multiplayer game with a custom medieval catapult rig that's been in development for over three years.

In this conversation, we go deep on the practical realities of exhibiting interactive work: Why IT staff aren't the same as technical infrastructure. How institutions fund physical installations but not digital development, or vice versa. Why a game that takes two weeks to build might tour internationally while a three-year project struggles to find the right venue. And what it means when audiences bring their player psychology into the gallery space—that instinct to test boundaries and break systems that makes games fundamentally different from other art forms.

If you're a cultural institution thinking about game-based programming, an artist navigating this landscape, or simply curious about what happens when the art world meets interactive media, this conversation offers a rare, unvarnished look at what it really takes to do this work well.

• (00:00) - The Infrastructure Gap: Why Museums Can't Show Interactive Work
• (00:43) - Theo Triantafyllidis on Building Performative Systems
• (01:30) - Beyond IT: What Game-Based Art Actually Requires
• (03:55) - The Funding Paradox: Digital vs. Physical Production
• (08:59) - Technical Realities: Maintenance, Testing, and Player Psychology
• (15:39) - Case Studies: From Two-Week Prototypes to Three-Year Developments
• (25:41) - Building Institutional Literacy for Game-Based Practice

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Jamin Warren founded Gameplayarts, an advisory that helps museums and cultural organizations engage with the world of gaming. He provides them with the research, strategy, and execution they need to reach gamers for the first–or millionth–time. Gameplayarts’ past and present clients organizations like MoMA, the Getty Research Institute, Tribeca Enterprises, and PBS.